Two Cuban exiles charged in a weapons-conspiracy case pleaded guilty just before their federal trial was to begin, averting the risk of stiff prison sentences if convicted by a Broward County jury.

BY JAY WEAVER

Two anti-Castro activists in their 60s pleaded guilty Monday to a weapons-conspiracy charge on the eve of their high-stakes trial in Fort Lauderdale federal court -- a jury proceeding that could have ended with imprisonment for the rest of their lives.

Instead of running that risk, Cuban exiles Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat cut plea deals on one count of conspiring to possess illegal weapons, which carries a five-year maximum prison penalty. The men, who remain in custody, face sentencing Nov. 14.

Alvarez, 65, and his friend Mitat, 64, avoided the distinct possibility of going to trial today before a Fort Lauderdale jury and being convicted of possessing illegal weapons, too. Those charges, coupled with the conspiracy charge in the original indictment, carried a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Two dozen family members and supporters attended the afternoon hearing before U.S. District Judge James Cohn, who had rejected bids by the pair's legal team to move the trial to Miami federal court. Cohn also opposed their latest proposal to include Cuban Americans from Miami-Dade County in the Broward County jury pool.

Relief dominated the courtroom as the two defendants seemed to eagerly accept their plea agreements to the single conspiracy charge of stashing machine guns, firearms, a silencer and a grenade launcher in a Broward apartment complex that belonged to Alvarez, a wealthy Miami developer. Each of the men, shackled at their wrists and ankles, smiled at their supporters. ''We're just happy it's over,'' Santiago Alvarez Jr. said about his father's case, declining to comment further.

Francisco ''Pepe'' Hernandez, president of the Cuban American National Foundation, said Alvarez's decision to plead guilty boiled down to common sense. ''He didn't have any choice after the judge ruled on the insistence of the government bringing this trial in Broward,'' he said.

''They realized their chances were slim, and they wanted to spare the community this commotion. I believe he did the right thing,'' Hernandez said. 'He told us that at the end, [saying] `I'm glad I did it.' ''

Jose Basulto of Brothers to the Rescue, an exile group that has flown search missions for Cuban rafters over the Florida Straits, said the guilty pleas were ''painful'' for him because he viewed Alvarez and Mitat as ''patriots'' who strongly backed the U.S. government's long fight to topple Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

''It becomes very difficult for me to process this,'' Basulto said. ``George Washington would have been proud of these two men as patriots.''

When Alvarez and Mitat pleaded not guilty to weapons charges last fall, dozens of the men's supporters denounced their prosecution in Fort Lauderdale, where a grand jury indicted them on charges of storing illegal weapons in Alvarez's Lauderhill apartment complex.

U.S. government agents first learned about Alvarez in May 2005 when he helped Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles emerge from hiding before his arrest for entering the country illegally. Posada is still in federal custody in Texas.

The government's star witness was going to be an FBI informant identified as Gilberto Abascal. He allegedly transported the weapons from the Broward apartment building to Mitat in Miami -- tipping off agents. The defendants' lawyers claimed Abascal was a spy for the Cuban government and the FBI. They planned to show that Abascal set up his former friends, Alvarez and Mitat.

Federal prosecutors Jacqueline Arango and Randy Hummel planned to blunt attacks on their witness by proving to jurors that the two defendants conspired to hide weapons in a storage facility at the Lauderhill complex.

Although they never accused the men of planning to use those firearms in an attack against the Cuban government, they intended to introduce evidence that showed Alvarez had financed a failed 2001 incursion against Castro, among other paramilitary activities.

The defendants' high-powered legal team -- Robert Josefsberg, Kendall Coffey, Ben Kuehne, Arturo Hernandez and Peter Prieto -- were negotiating with prosecutors until the 11th hour Monday.

But, as is often the case before trial, the reality of facing stiff prison sentences set in for the two men. Under federal sentencing guidelines, Mitat will likely serve at least three years and Alvarez about four years.

''Both of these men are patriots,'' said Coffey, a former U.S. attorney in Miami. ``They took risks for their cause and they are prepared to accept the consequences. They are enemies of Fidel Castro, not the United States.''